Conspiracy Theories, Skepticism, and Critical Thinking

This week's post is late because I had to have an emergency appendectomy this week. I'm recovering well.  Protocol 14 I cannot to say that I've come across any real atheist globalist conspiracy theories. Sure, atheists (of which I consider myself) have some irrational beliefs. There is the Sam Harris problem of blending Islam with Islamic nationalism; there are some martyrdom issues (of which some are exaggerated, some fabricated, but there are legitimate causes of concern); but once we get into a large scale conspiracy theories they evolve (devolve?) into a weird religious position. Cooper has got his version of Christianity throughout this book. The Flat Earth conspiracy theory is fundamentalist Christian at its center (I should note that there might be a version of fundamentalist Islamic flat earth since it is flat in a literal reading of the Koran); and only the 80s and 90s UFOlogy circuits were non-religious. Cooper comes out of the circuit so I may have to revisit tho

Protocol 13 The protocol continues the same idea that 12 focused on, the press as a means of control. This protocol is more in tune with the practicalities of this plan rather than the theoretical nature of "we must control the press." I commented last week that 12 was unique in conspiracy theory literature because it had more specificity than all of the other stuff that I've read. Sure, "None Dare Call it Conspiracy" had names and dates, but it was all pretend. Business magnates went to Russia therefore Rockefeller was in charge of Communism is how the argument went there and it felt rather hollow. 12 wasn't that, it was a single focus and a goal; 13 continues along that idea.  My biggest complaint about 13 is that it is short enough that it should have been the final part of 12. I do not know if this to keep the reader engaged with constant section breaks or if the plagiarist just became tired. I know from years of blogging, that if I go over 1000 words I

Protocol 12 Number 12 is unique in that it is a long protocol, but it stays on track and  it actually contributes to a conspiracy theory. The entire protocol concerns the press and publishing, how the Elder controls it, and why it's important to do so. Modern conspiracy theories can take inspiration from this part. It's also very curious that Cooper hasn't bothered to emphasize any of the points made in this particular protocol because of a very strange plan that Cooper tried to implement.  Protocol 12 concerns the press, but in modern times we would just call this "the media." The reasoning is that there is no other media than the press in 19th century France where the Protocols originally came from. Conspiracy theorists have a predictable and ironic relationship with the media. The most obvious relationship they have is to call everything a lie and that the media is the tool of "them." In this case, it's the Jews, which are obviously in charge of e

Protocol 10: I want to take one step back before we get into Protocol 11 to quote the end of 10. The Elder is pointing out the various methods by which you can divide the people against their government through the use of " torture, by starvation, BY THE INOCULATION OF DISEASES, by want, to the Goyim see no other issue than to take refuge in our complete sovereignty in money and in all else." The all caps section is out of place here because at no point in the ten protocols so far have we seen this. The method is, as we know, something the Cooper has used throughout the work. I had been working under the assumption that Cooper never read the Protocols, that he was just using to pad out his work, but now, we know two things: that he has read this book and that he's anti-vaccination. He thinks vaccination was a tool to divide the government against the people. This, however doesn't make sense within his conspiracy--if "they" truly want us to be slaves then the

Protocol 10 The people that Cooper is writing for claim to believe in one thing above all: The US Constitution. It's almost always clear that they have never read it, do not understand it, and think it says things that it does not. These are the people that think the Declaration of Independence is a legally binding document, are aware of something called the Federalist Papers but that's about it, and they usually tip in favor of odd sovereign citizen positions. It's important also to remember that this book was written in the 1990s and the right-wing militia movement hated Bill Clinton. To be fair, they didn't like George H.W. Bush either, but nothing like their vitriol for Bill Clinton.  In my opinion, there was nothing that Clinton did  to earn their ire. I think that he took office in 1992 and it just coincided with right-wing conspiracism as a movement. Yet he's the president, by default, he must be part of the conspiracy. The conspirators could not allow someon

Protocol 9 Internal consistency is one hurdle that conspiracy theories like the one we see in the Protocols, and then in Cooper's book cannot get over. The biggest problem with this theory is the one that Cooper has been unwittingly revealing in this book. It's said outright by the Elder:                  " De facto we have already wiped out every kind of rule except our own, although de jure there still remain a good many of them. Nowadays, if any States raise a protest against us it is only pro forma at our discretion and by our direction, for their anti-Semitism is indefensible to use for the management of our lesser brethren." And later in the next paragraph the Elder claims: " For us there are no checks to limit the range of our activity. Our Super-Government subsists in extra-legal conditions which are described in the accepted terminology by the energetic and forcible word--Dictatorship."  [I also note that this is a departure from the Joly book the P